Medical School Wins Grant to Teach Addiction Screening

Two closely related three-year grants — one to Brown University and one to Rhode Island Hospital — will integrate extensive training in substance abuse screening and intervention into the curriculum not only for medical students and residents but also for students in social work, nursing, and pharmacy. Because all these trainees already help to provide health care to thousands of Rhode Islanders, the programs will substantially expand the amount of screening and intervention around the state as it seeks to overcome a major epidemic of opioid overdose deaths.

The grants of $916,851 to Brown and $788,403 to Rhode Island Hospital come from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). At Brown, Paul George ’01 MD’05 RES’08 is developing training for medical students in all four years of instruction at the Alpert Medical School, and is collaborating with Rhode Island College to create curriculum for nursing and social work students and the University of Rhode Island for pharmacy students. At Rhode Island Hospital, Michael Mello, MD, MPH, will produce a training program and curriculum for fourth-year medical students and residents in emergency medicine.